Video of Obama, coal bankruptcy

posted at 8:30 am on November 3, 2008 by Ed Morrissey

Yesterday, we featured the audio, and today, we have the 4-minute video clip of Barack Obama talking about bankrupting new coal plants in the US. Obama complained yesterday that his comments got taken out of context. Here we have the entire answer on coal, and the full context really doesn’t help Obama:

This still consists of Obama sending “price signals” that discourage the use of coal. He does say that getting rid of coal altogether is an illusion, but he’s obviously opposed to expanding its use or even keeping it at current levels. He wants to heavily fine coal operators in order to get “billions” for R&D on alternatives, which will send the coal industry reeling and energy prices skyrocketing, as Obama himself pledges later in the same interview.

Yesterday, Sarah Palin demanded to know why the San Francisco Chronicle sat on this story for so long. The Chronicle responded by noting that the video has been available on their website since January 17th of this year. However, the Chronicle never reported on these quotes from Obama, and these statements certainly seem noteworthy enough to include in any look at Obama’s policies on energy.

Even more oddly, they never provided a transcript of the interview, an almost automatic step for any meeting between national political candidates and the editors of a newspaper. Why didn’t the Chronicle transcribe their meeting in the nine months between then and now? Did they realize how damaging this could be to Obama’s hopes in the middle of the primaries and chose to quietly shelve the interview?

Comments

After watching the video of Obama talking about bankrupting new coal plants in the US. If anyone in a coal producing states actually vote for this clown, you deserve what you get!

try again later on November 3, 2008 at 9:35 AM

first the dems destroyed the steel industry in OH, and PA now they are coming after the coal industry. what’s next will the dems go after the nursing home industry since PA’s greatest export is young people?

Alot of Americans seem to want to vote for Obama because they think he will have better foreign policies than McCain, and the world will love the states again. No no. In the beginning, yes. But one year later and the world will wonder why Americans elected a president even more retarded than the last one.

Does anyone get the feeling some in the media are starting to have buyer’s remorse? I’ve seen more MSM outlets putting stuff like this out at the last minute to absolve themselves of any guilt. Maybe they are realizing too late that they’ve backed a wackadoodle and fear the repercussions.

Coal production and coal powered plants will do the same thing “to the earth” without regard from which country.

Admit that it is only relocating, OUTSOURCING industry.

And admit that “clean coal technology” exists already in America, but not in China where the industry would be outsourced FOR CHINA’S ECONOMIC GROWTH AND OUR ECONOMIC DESTRUCTION. Admit that since Clinton’s Executive Orders, American clean coal mines have been shut down and the import of clean coal from Asia has been enforced in the USA.

I have bit of discouraging news. My cousin’s wife is a solid McCain supporter , but she has several friends who are self-described “independents”. She passed this latest information on Obama’s stance on coal to her friends. The responses they gave completely shocked us. Essentially they said they were glad to hear this because they believe energy prices have been too low for too long. They also believe higher energy prices will force people to conserve more. Take this for whatever its worth, but it is a bit disappointing. Some of these individuals even have kids; hope they enjoy what they get.

I have bit of discouraging news. My cousin’s wife is a solid McCain supporter , but she has several friends who are self-described “independents”. She passed this latest information on Obama’s stance on coal to her friends. The responses they gave completely shocked us. Essentially they said they were glad to hear this because they believe energy prices have been too low for too long. They also believe higher energy prices will force people to conserve more. Take this for whatever its worth, but it is a bit disappointing. Some of these individuals even have kids; hope they enjoy what they get.

Does anyone get the feeling some in the media are starting to have buyer’s remorse? I’ve seen more MSM outlets putting stuff like this out at the last minute to absolve themselves of any guilt. Maybe they are realizing too late that they’ve backed a wackadoodle and fear the repercussions.

Now you know why Obama has been pushing people to vote early. I’m sure there are many now in the coal states who have had their eyes opened over this and cannot change their vote.

This is why Kentucky will stand against Barrack Hussein Obama from our coal producing state.
I pray Americans have not become mind numb robots and vote for this man of no experience because if they do then Hollywood could produce the next president by simply writing him a script which is what Barrack Hussein Obama has been spewing for 18 months!!!
I don’t think I could listen to his banter for 4 more years. That would make 5 and a half years counting how long he has been campaigning. Hillary sounds great in retropect and I’m a republican.

As BHO says, China is building one coal-fired power plant per week. No concern, however, about Chinese CO2 (whose amount now exceeds ours) destroying the planet.

Bigfoot on November 3, 2008 at 9:39 AM

Firstly of course, CO2 does NOTHING to warm the planet, it has no such property. In fact, CO2 has continued to clime in the atmosphere for the past ten years while the earth has been cooling, so very obviously, CO2 is not the driver for warming. The sun is however, the sun is in its low output phase, hardly any sunspots at all, thus the climate is cooling.

But I understand your point, if CO2 caused global warming, which it does not and if there really was man-made global warming, which there is NOT, then it would be useless to cut American made CO2 when China is just going to produce all it wants.

So your point is well taken, but its important to stress, with all the propaganda out there, that CO2 is beneficial to the atmosphere, plants cannot grow without it. No CO2 in the air would make for a DEAD planet. People exhale CO2, so Al Gore was just trying to tax the air you breath. Commie Democrats trying to tax you more, nothing new about that.

I have bit of discouraging news. My cousin’s wife is a solid McCain supporter , but she has several friends who are self-described “independents”. She passed this latest information on Obama’s stance on coal to her friends. The responses they gave completely shocked us. Essentially they said they were glad to hear this because they believe energy prices have been too low for too long. They also believe higher energy prices will force people to conserve more. Take this for whatever its worth, but it is a bit disappointing. Some of these individuals even have kids; hope they enjoy what they get.

ricardoz: “the world will love the states again. No no. In the beginning, yes.”

The only folks who don’t like us now are Socialists. Joining their clique won’t put us anywhere other than at the bottom of THEIR totem pole. The world according to Obama has no love for America regardless. Obama’s supporters abroad are radical Socialists, Communists, and Islamofascists.

Don’t anyone be so foolish as to dream that anyone will like America more if we just elect a Black Supremacist Marxist who successfully systematically bankrupts every facet of America. They may like Obama. But even Obama doesn’t like Americans. Obama will play their fiddle throughout his presidency’s destruction of our Constitution. And woe be unto any who prefer our Constitution as written and our government as it defines.

For the life of me I don’t understand how Obama has such a HUGE following. It reminds me of Night of the Living Dead with zombies totally ignoring the FACTS of who this guy is. It totally defies logic.

several friends who are self-described “independents”. She passed this latest information on Obama’s stance on coal to her friends. The responses they gave completely shocked us. Essentially they said they were glad to hear this because they believe energy prices have been too low for too long. They also believe higher energy prices will force people to conserve more. Take this for whatever its worth, but it is a bit disappointing. Some of these individuals even have kids; hope they enjoy what they get.

matthewbit07 on November 3, 2008 at 9:47 AM

They are NOT independents – they are flaming enviro-liberals.

‘Progressive’ and ‘independent’ is what flaming libtards call themselves to feel better and smarter.

Why didn’t the Chronicle transcribe their meeting in the nine months between then and now? Did they realize how damaging this could be to Obama’s hopes in the middle of the primaries and chose to quietly shelve the interview?

I think that the adhere to a variation of a portion of the Hippocratic Oath: Do no harm to your favored candidate.

Be careful with the absolutism.
CO2 does have absorptive properties, and theoretically will insulate the Earth. The question is how much this actually contributes, and if their are related feedback mechanisms that enhance, reduce, or reverse this effect. The “Global Warming” crowd is panicking (if I give them the benefit of the doubt) over the average of their theoretical computer models showing an upward trend in temperature. To my knowledge, none of these models accurately model the past hundred years.
Geologically, there is strong evidence that CO2 concentrations follow temperature more than they affect it. Also keep in mind that most CO2 is dissolved in the ocean (and when I say most, I mean 90%+).

Hillary, Biden, Obama himself and more; all predicting terrible consequences from his election. Won’t anybody believe these people?? Do they think this “pre-disaster” mentality will insulate him from the consequences?
Merciful God, what happened to sanity?

There’s only one reason to conserve, and that is if we are running out.

We have hundreds of years worth of oil left in this country, and over a thousand years worth of coal.

There is no need to conserve. When oil and coal do start running out, the price of both will start to rise on their own. There is no need for govt to artificially increase the price. Now or in the future.

Doesn’t this directly contradict what Obama said at one of the debates about his support for nuclear power?

It’s like McCain said. He supports it if there’s no nuclear fuel storage issue, which of course there is. But if there wasn’t, he’d think it was great. So in a science fiction alternative universe, he’d be for it…

How many Americans even know what percentage of the atmosphere CO2 represents? I asked my wife, who has a BS in MIS, and she said 30%. After mocking her for not paying attention in high school I informed her that in fact CO2 makes up less than 0.038% .
It is an incredibly insiginificant portion of our atmosphere.

“independents”…glad to hear this because they believe energy prices have been too low for too long

Astroturfing : formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising which seek to create the impression of being spontaneous “grassroots” behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf.

The Obama campaign is PAYING people not only to vote, but to take over news sites and blogs with these doomsday commetnters – DO NOT BE FOOLED! Vote like your country depends on it.

I have been reading on here, for a few months now…and have been wanting to comment, so thank you for opening registration, and granting the privilege. :)

I am so angry about this. Why didn’t the paper open it up til now? Because a lot have already early voted, absentee voted, and mailed in their votes. Since the msm’s won’t cover this….the news will spread slowly, unless by some miracle, someone covers this.

This not only affects every homeowner, and working person, but every business, and industry as well. This will literally take us back to the Little House On the Prarie Years, and for some reason, I see Barack, and Michelle enjoying us in that position.

They have a bent. A huge chip on their shoulders. A vendetta, something to prove, and they don’t care who gets hurt, so long as they take power.

Of course CO2 can absorb heat…. please name a gas for me that will not absorb heat, all gases do. But the fact is, CO2 has LESS ability to absorb heat from sunlight than either nitrogen or oxygen. Combine that fact with the fact that CO2 is far less than one percent of the air and you see that CO2 cannot be a driver for global warming as claimed by Al Gore. The claim that CO2 is the driver for so called man-made global warming is just plain fraud.

actually watching the entire video in context actually in my opinion defeats the argument that was made. He is clearly talking about the old traditional form of coal producing and not clean coal. We cant bash libs for skewing things and then go right around and do the same thing…

The environmentalist wackos in coal producing states are still voting for Obama. To be honest, I’m not a rabid bug and bunny hugger, but I do live in a coal producing state that has seen more than its fair share of strip mines. There are ways to mine coal without taking the tops off of mountains. I’m all for mining coal so long as it’s done without topping mountains.

You don’t just come up with the statement that you will tax coal companies into bankruptcy if you haven’t thought about it. Coal producers and clean coal entrepreneurs are savvy enough to know not to trust Obama’s doublespeak on the issue. For the rest of us it is apparent that Obama is trying to ride two horses. Whether you think he does so successfully is determinative of nothing except possibly your support for Obama on this issue.

Also, if he’s going to bankrupt these companies that are on the ‘cap and trade’ system, how in the world are bankrupt companies going to be able to supply the government with the ‘billions of dollars’ he expects to get from these companies for his programs.

ie. He says ‘we have a cap and trade system that will levy a tax on these companies that will bankrupt them’.

‘From this tax on bankrupted companies, we will invest in unproven and uninvented technology’.

How does he get tax from a bankrupt proven company to support technology that doesn’t work?

America is in for a rude awakening with this guy, Pelosi, and Reid (coal makes you sick) ACTUALLY IN CHARGE of the government. How did we get here?

Obama doesn’t get it. Energy and exploration of existing and new sources is the most pressing issue that America faces. We are playing the energy game with both hands tied behind our backs, while the rest of the world can behave the way America used to. Obama is the result of this policy pushed by some to have America sit out the near future of economic growth. It’s very frustrating that educated people are willing to fall for this. This whole thing reminds me of when Albright said publicly that it’s not in our interest for America to be the sole super-power in the world.

What they never discuss publicly is the cost of CO2 cap and trade. The fact that it has failed miserably in every country where it has been tried and that just 10 years ago we rejected Kyoto for the very same reason. There is no hard science that man made CO2 contributes to global change and there is hard science that cap and trade kills energy producers, innovators, and the jobs they provide. CO2 cap and trade would effectively kill clean coal. We need a bridge to carbon free energy production. Cap and trade would make coal gasification economically/legally impossible and thus would effectively burn down the bridge provided by clean coal technology.

The more I find out about Obama, the more frightened I become about the future of this country. It is not just Obama’a marxist views that are chilling, it is the full cooperation he gets from the MSM to enable him. I will cast my insignificant Republican ballot in Illinois tomorrow and hope against hope that McCain somehow pulls it out. The Illinois Republican party has been castrated because they tried to out-Democrat the Democrats in the areas of policy and corruption. I hope that the national Republican party doesn’t do the same if things don’t go our way tomorrow.

The scary part is that Maobama has admitted his Marxist theories on energy distribution many times and people STILL want to vote for him. I’ll be buying a woodstove for the old homestead this winter…looks like that’ll be the only way I’ll be able to afford to heat my house. That’s if I can afford the gas in my pickup to go cut wood after Obama gets done spiking gas prices again.

Because left leaning voters aren’t worried about facts and logic. They are more concerned with feeling good about what they decide. They have bought into a belief system that is already devoid of logical merit. So they have to pin their hopes on the dream of how wonderful the world can be while ignoring the impossibility of Utopia ever existing at all. In their world it is the thought that counts even if making it happen turns out to be a disaster.

I remember hearing a clip of Barry back when gas prices went up. He said the only problem was that they went up “too fast.” I don’t know why it didn’t get much air play. I think I heard it on Hugh Hewitt’s show.

I have bit of discouraging news. My cousin’s wife is a solid McCain supporter , but she has several friends who are self-described “independents”. She passed this latest information on Obama’s stance on coal to her friends. The responses they gave completely shocked us. Essentially they said they were glad to hear this because they believe energy prices have been too low for too long. They also believe higher energy prices will force people to conserve more. Take this for whatever its worth, but it is a bit disappointing. Some of these individuals even have kids; hope they enjoy what they get.

If your case is so compelling, why do you have to resort to name calling and insults to communicate your position? I assert that the title of this site is a hint.

When you lose the election(s) tomorrow in a lanslide, don’t blame Barack, (you probably know him as Barry or Hussein) or John McCain. Blame George W. Bush. And of course, blame yourselves for electing Bush in the first place.

After eight years of Bush, The democrats would have won this election with poodle as their candidate.

Frankly, I was planning to vote for McCain and I was so disgusted with his VP choice and his campaign tactics I changed my mind. I’m not the only one.

National Mining Association (NMA) President and CEO Hal Quinn today responded to comments Senator Obama reportedly made in a January 17 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. In response to a question, the senator said his climate change policy would “bankrupt” U.S. coal:

“Bankrupting the coal industry would be tantamount to bankrupting the American economy. Coal generates half of our nation�s electricity, employs hundreds of thousands of Americans and provides millions of dollars in revenue to coal states.

“Destroying the coal industry would break America�s energy backbone. It would raise the cost of energy for households and businesses throughout the country and create massive job losses. We trust the candidates understand this and do not believe that destroying the coal industry is part of the change we need.”

The Carbon cap-and-trade program is not needed. Congress plans to institute these controls that will raise hundreds of billions of dollars every year.

Here are some facts about CO2.

CO2 is a trace gas. Since industrialization began CO2 has increased (in the past 250 years) approx 100ppm, or 1/10,000th. This small increase can not melt global ice, nor would a 1/10,000th decrease cause an ice age.

The warmest year in the USA was 1934, the coolest, in the late 1970’s.

It did get warmer, due to the sun, temperatures peaked in 1998, it has cooled ever since.

The .6 degree increase in 20th century temperatures were given up last year, global temperatures declined .7 degrees, the fastest decrease in temperatures ever recorded.

According to the US Climate Agency which tracks temperature at over 5,400 weather stations, the average temperature of the US through August was .1 degree below the 114 year temperature average.

If the Arctic melted entirely in Summer, sea level will not rise an inch.

Antarctica has 90% of the worlds ice and this ice reached record size in 2008. When you ad both poles together, there is no loss of global polar ice!

The Midieval and Roman periods were warmer than today (not caused by man).

We had a cold winter in 2007-2008. Most snow cover in USA, Asia and Siberia in 60 years. China had its worst winter in 100 years.

During one Ice Age the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was over ten times todays level.

There were 28% fewer hurricanes from 1951-2001 than 1900-1950, and they were also less powerful on average.

The sun drives the temperature, according to NASA solar output (solar winds) is presently the lowest ever recorded and 30% below normal. August 2008 was the first month since 1913 without sunspots, an indicator of lower solar activity, which has historically led to cooling. (the relatioship between solar activity and world temperatures has been documented over several hundred years of observation).

Which state is in such an energy crisis they ALREADY have had to go to rolling blackouts and outrageous price hikes on it’s citizens?

California, of course, where no real expansion of energy capabilities thanks to the Green lobby has helped bankrupt the state as it has to have resources imported to meet their demands.

So a guy running for President admits on camera in January of this year if he gets elected he’s going to cause electricity rates to skyrocket,and the Chronicle thinks it’s readers in California won’t find that newsworthy?

Why did they sit on it???? All the media is in the freaking tank for Obama…you think that could be it? *L* But will it make any difference? I think not. Nothing Obama does or says seems to be of any importance to the media or even some of the American people. How do you fight something like that?